Skiing in Hawaii - and Other Winter Activities

Mauna Kea is the highest point on earth from the tectonic plate. Not higher than Mt Everest from sea level, but higher from the tectonic plate. The air is thin and the weather can be beautiful or it can be treacherous. At certain times during the year there can be snow storms resulting in 10 foot snow drifts. Not anything one might expect in Hawaii. Always check the weather and make sure the observatories are open...that is another story.

When you hear of people skiing in Hawaii, they just might be doing that on Mauna Kea. There are no chairlifts and the closest thing is a friend willing to to pick you up in a four-wheel drive, not too far from the summit, and bring you back up again.

When the W. M. Keck Observatory was being built, the buyer with Keck received a requisition for a snow blower. Snow blower sellers were identified, evaluated and a seller in Wisconsin was selected. When it came to giving the seller a shipping address, the buyer stated "Hawaii" as the shipping destination. When hearing that, the snow blower seller thought that the order must be a joke. It took the Keck Observatory buyer some time to convince the Wisconsin seller that there was actually snow in Hawaii, and sometimes quite a bit. So, the buyer agreed to send the seller of the snow blower a "photo" when the snow blower was in use. That photo is below, on the bottom of this page. Also directly below are three photos taken by observatory workers, after a storm, going up Mauna Kea to work on the W. M. Keck Observatory in approximately 1990.

Mahalo for Visiting!

Skiing in Hawaii - and Other Winter Activities